Oliver Anthony: Country Music, Blue-Collar America, Fame, Money, and Pain | Lex Fridman Podcast #469

The following is a conversation with Oliver Anthony, singer, songwriter from Virginia, who first gained worldwide fame with his viral hit Rich Men north of Richmond. He became a voice for many who are voiceless, with his songs speaking to the struggle of the working class in modern American life. His legal name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford. Oliver Anthony was his grandfather's name, and so Chris used this name as a dedication to his grandfather and to 1930s Appalachia, where his grandfather was born and raised. Dirt floors, seven kids, hard times, as Chris says. He's happy to be called either one, by the way. I've gotten to know Chris more since the recording of this conversation. He truly is, as he appears online and in his songs, down to Earth, humble and a good man who deeply feels the pain of the downtrodden. This is the Lex Friedman podcast to support it. Please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Christopher Lunceford, or as many of you know him as Oliver Anthony. So I was texting you last night, sitting at an open mic, listening to a guy perform Great Balls of Fire. Like I told you, he was giving everything he got for, like five people in the audience plus me.

Well, you were there. I've been. I'd have been doing it too, if you were out there, like, oh, that's like screaming.

No, man, he was this big dude on a keyboard. Just everything. Sweaty, long hair. You could tell, like, he was there in his own little world. I love the courage of that, of just giving it everything. I don't think he wants to be famous. I don't think he wants anything in life except to be there and to play, like, his heart out. That's why I love open mics. Like, some people still aspire to be famous when they play open mics, but some people, maybe they've given up or maybe they never wanted to be famous. They're just there for the pure artistry of it. So, yeah, and you said you started out playing open mics? What, at shitty bars? What was that like?

Well, yeah, real quick, before I forget, too, a great example of a guy who had that same mindset and was able to maintain it really well is this mandolin player named Johnny Stats. And really West Virginia. To me, he's one of the best. And he's won all these awards and stuff, and he still works for UPS full time. And, like, he could go out and tour with it, play Manuelin for anybody he wanted to, but he. But, man, when you meet Johnny, like, you can tell he's just got this. This Joy in him that I don't think he would have if he. But as far as me with the open mics. Yeah, it was just. It was. A lot of them were really. A lot of them were embarrassing. There was a couple. I remember there was times where I'd go up and try to do. I do like one song. I get like halfway through the next song and I'd be so nervous by that point. I didn't. I couldn't remember any of the words. And there's a couple times I. I remember there was one time in particular that I just. I just walked off halfway through the song, put my guitar in the case and just. I just left. I didn't even like, couldn't even stay in there. Just total, you know, just total freak out, just embarrassment. And I never drank in bars either. Like, I'm not a. I wasn't really a social drinker. So I was just there to try to do the mic. So it was kind of. I was a little out of place anyway. I feel kind of out of place in a bar to start with. So.

Yeah, it's back when you could smoke in bars. There's a whole vibe to it. People smoking and drinking and. Yeah, definitely, you know, bombing in a place like that when the audience. There's like five people and they're bored.

Yeah, there was one like that. It was in Motoka. It wasn't that far from where I lived. The place is gone now, but it was about as big as the room we're in here, if that, you know, like the. The ceiling tiles were yellow from where everybody had smoked in it since the beginning of time. But like. Yeah, that was my little spot. Those little type of spots, you did covers.

Would you play? What was your go to back then?

It was like, I don't know, Fishing in the Dark, Nitty Gritty Band. Or like any of those old Hank, like Hank Jr. Songs. Like any of those bar type David Allen Coe, like you never call Me by my name, any of that kind of stuff. And I haven't even played any of those in forever now. But that was. Any of those ones where you get people singing along and stuff. That's what I'd always try to do, you know.

Yeah, that song you performed, Take Me Home, Country Road. How's that go? West Virginia.

Yeah.

Good song.

John Denver was just one of those guys that. It's. Who knows where he would have went long term if he wouldn't have passed.

But you know, it's a fun song that I love. I shouldn't but I love is. What is it like? Thank God I'm a country boy.

I think that's what I liked about John Denver was. He was a little bit like. He let himself be a little bit corny in the spirit of like having fun with it. Like, great example, there's this old, older guy that not a lot of people have heard of named Roy Clark. But my farm's like a mile down the road from Roy Clark's old farm. But he. He on Hee Haw. Do you. I don't know if you ever heard of that old show from like the 60s or whatever, but crazy dude, he could pick any instrument up. Like there's videos on YouTube of him, but he would just sit there and just pick anything up and just rip it to death. But he would always just be real silly about it. He never had. He never took it to. Never took himself too seriously. You know, some people go to the.

Fun place, some people go to the dark place. Yeah, there's a. You know, country can do both. You, You. You more often go to the dark place to, to the. To the pain.

Yeah, well, especially some of the new songs that are coming out that they'll be probably not con. I mean, I don't know what they'll be. I don't know what is country anymore anyway? I don't know that many people who listen to the type of music that I grew up listening to probably listen to country radio anymore anyway. Like, I think there's. There's quite a lot of people who don't. Who have sort of disowned that space. You know, in commercialized country, you only really get what sells, which on a lot of what sells isn't necessarily what matters.

Well, you had that whole experience where they take what you recorded and polish it, quote unquote, try to make it perfect, and in so doing destroy the soul of the thing. And so probably that happens with these big artists. They're so famous. It's like a machine. And so what the machine does is it over polishes things. And so the raw power of the person, the uniqueness of the person, the soul of the person is gone if you do that.

Yeah. Well, I think professionalism, like applying the tastic, the tactics of corporate America to anything that is. Yeah, baseline artistic is not going to end well.

They're all individually brilliant, but together this corporate speak comes out. Yeah, just the soul of the people dissipates. It disappears. Why are you all pretending that, like, life is not terrible and beautiful and like you're Both scared shitless and excited. And this guy's going through a divorce. This person just fell in love. Like, you're getting the intensity of life with this corporate, like 9 to 5. Like, hi, John, it's great to see you today. Oh, you too. You as well. You as well. But when I look at it, I'm like, why am I whining? I feel like a Bukowski type character because, like, they're all really nice, they're all good people, but, like, something is gone when you have this corporate machine.

Well, they're. They're there to fill a role contractually. And if they. I think if they bring too many of their human elements into that, then they jeopardize losing their sense of security. And it's all just out of fear. It's out of fear of losing your job. I mean, it's the reason why all the songs say Oliver Anthony and not Christopher Lunsford on them, you know, like, it's fear of. It's so difficult to. Especially now, it seems. I mean, who knows? I didn't. I was never around in the 40s or 50s to work a job. I'm sure they were probably pretty miserable back then, but, you know, they talk about now, like, how difficult it is, like the. The impossibility of having a single family household or anything else. But like, when you find a decent paying job that you can do without it just torturing you every day, that's a. That's. That's a pretty important thing now, you know, like. And so it. It's pretty easy to just. It's pretty easy to kind of turn yourself into a robot for eight or ten hours a day out of fear of. It's like you don't want to be yourself too much because maybe part of yourself isn't something that's accepted in this, like, dystopian nightmare that you go to work at every day. And so you just got to do your best to just not step on any toes or do anything that. That makes you stand out too much, you know? And now it's like now like when you scroll through some of these videos of people, like the big. Even when I was still. Like when I was still working my lame job, it was like there was this whole big thing of people talking about quiet quitting or something like that, where they were just going to go to work but not really do anything.

But that hurts me so much. That hurts me when you just stop when you're there, but you're not really there. That makes me so sad.

Yeah. So then they wonder. These companies just slowly kind of fall apart and disintegrate because they're so worried about structure and you know, like, I mean, God, man. Even in, even in America today, our culture has become. Because so many big corporations own and manage everything that we live under, like food, agriculture, health care, like social media. It's all in corporate structures that. It's almost like a lot of the problems we find ourselves in now with society, I think are like, it's just because of. It's almost like corporate HR has been implemented into our whole thought process of everything. You know, it's like. I think that's kind of what you're touching on though. It's like, it's, it's hard to be. It's hard to be a human and be a good little corporate employee at the same time. And as our whole society moves more into like becoming a, like, basically one big corporation, it's like, you don't want to piss the HR lady off. So it's a lot easier for me to just beep boop. We're all sort of just turning, we're all turning into robots, you know, and that's.

I've talked to great engineers about this. Jim Keller is a legendary engineer. Elon, Elon Musk is another example that you need that. I don't know what's a nice term for it, but you need the asshole because you want to get to the ground truth of things, to the first principle of things, like how do we simplify, how do we make it more efficient, how do we move faster, how do we get shit done? And that has no place for this polite speak. And then other great team members swoop in and like repair the damage that the tornado has done.

Do you think that's because I'm not, I'm not super well versed about all this, so I'm probably dumb to even mention it, but this guy who's been helping me with doing a documentary, he's been following me around since the very first show at August of 23. He, his background was doing promotional videos for Boeing, like, for. On their new spacecraft to pitch it to whoever. And so he was, we touched, we touched base a little bit on Boeing and of course they're having a lot of problems now, it sounds like. And he was comparing that with SpaceX or with, you know, like that, that I, I think it's that exactly what we touched on with that thought process of that sort of dehumanization within companies. I think that's what ultimately Causes maybe. I don't know if there's a connection there or not, but it seems like Boeing is a very. Would be more of that. They don't have that Tornado. They're very like h. Like he was telling me, even just with his protocols and some of the people he worked with, like, everything's just very, you know, lightly touch everything. No one. You don't. Don't touch anything too hard.

So it's not just hr, it's also. It's just this managerial class where it's like Bob from this department has to schedule a meeting with John from this department and Debbie. Like they have to have a meeting two and a half weeks from now. And then there's paperwork and that. That bureaucracy that's created in the managerial class just slows everything down. And one of the things that's slowing everything down does. Is it really demotivates the people that are actually doing the shit. Like the people on the ground, the engineers that are building stuff. It's again, soul drenching to like be excited, show up. And now you hit this wall of paperwork. Like, you can't. You have to wait for John and Debbie. And I forgot the third guy's name that I imagined in my head to have a meeting. It just. And then you kind of slow down and you disappear in terms of that fire, that passion that's required to create big things.

Yeah. Because they don't believe there's a lack of leadership. And if they don't believe in. If they don't believe in that leadership, then why the hell would they be motivated? I mean, I remember a while back watching a Jocko Willnick talk about a. Talk about that when he was in leadership, when he was leading his guys. I think he mentions it in his book is probably where I remember seeing it, one of his books. And he talks about like, how important it was for the people under him in rank to believe in what he was, the actions he was giving them, even if he necessarily didn't agree with him himself. It was like they're. It's really hard to take orders and go and like to. To have human spirit and especially in something that's innovative and not if you. If you're working for a company where you just think everybody's dumb. I mean, I can certainly relate with that. I mean, God, that's all. In my old job, that's all we did was we spent half our day just talking about how. How dumb we thought everybody was that was above us. You know, it's like it's easy to fall into that in the corporate world. And so, yeah, the morale gets terrible and. And everyone suffers as a result of it. You know, like, the people at the top who are implementing all that dysfunction suffer, and the people at the bottom, it's like, it's not good for anybody. I had thought now that I'm doing this that I could escape away from that, but that exact same mentality and that dysfunction and that. That inefficiency, like, I still battle it every day.

That's why it takes. It takes unique characters to lead the way. Such unique characters are very much needed in the music industry to revolutionize everything, cut through the bureaucracy, the bullshit that ultimately is just a machine that steals money and doesn't get any. Anything done, really. We'll talk about it. By the way, all the love in the world to Jocko. He's great. I've been going through lots of ups and downs in life, lots of low points for myself over the past shit, three years, really. But recently especially. And he always texts in this. In this very high testosterone way of like. Of like, you good, bro? Just checking in. I mean, he's a good man. He's a good man. This is obviously an inspiration to millions of people, but also just is a good human being himself.

So maybe one. One thing that we felt similarly. I'm just. I. I would imagine you way more than me is just feeling like, like, wow, I have the ability to influence or the ability to. To. To. To either bring truth or to improve people's lives or. Or, you know, every word that you say sometimes matters so much, and you're just like, man, I'm an idiot. Like, I don't. Yeah, Like, I don't know. You know, Like, I would have never guessed. I mean, we were kind of talking about that before about, like, I would have never guessed that it would have turned. That this would have turned into all this. But it's. It is a. It is a. It is a weight that you bear, whether you really even acknowledge it or not. You know, like.

Yeah, I think it's like, you know, the songs you've created, they speak to the human condition, to the struggle of everyday working people in a society that has the elites that try to take advantage of those working people, and you're just speaking through your music those truths of how life is. And then that has a huge impact on a lot of people. That's really positive. But then you also get attacked and misrepresented and lied about from different angles. And just the turmoil, the intense chaos of that it disorients. It disorients me, like to be attacked by very large number of people, to be lied about, to be just the it. Because I love people and just have, I have a general optimism about humanity. It just disorients me. Like it gives me this feeling like I generally, just like you said, think of myself as kind of an idiot, not really knowing what I'm doing. And when a lot of people tell you that you're correct, you don't know what you're doing, you start to like, want to hide. You want to hide from the world, hide from yourself. And then there's also just the chemistry of the brain. It's like you shake up the brain a little bit. It starts getting, it starts getting weird. And so it can get on many fronts. It can get real lonely when getting attacked, when you're kind of fucking things up in many ways and get lonely. Yeah. So it's been. So you get a text from Jocko, like, you good? Yeah. And then, I mean, I have good friends. Andrew Huberman's been great. Rogan's been great.

Well, you know, you, Lex, however, many years ago, was in a different place in society than Lex is now. And so it's like every conversation you have or every relationship you have is inherently different. Even if you aren't any different friends that you had from before, maybe, or even just new people you meet, your interactions with them are going to be a lot different than if this wasn't a thing. And so it's like that, that can be tricky too when you've spent your whole life, you know, from the time you're three years old and you're starting to play with other kids and like developmentally learning like how to share and how to interact and you're on the, you're playing, you know, you're playing the playground with kids and learning how to like set rules and boundaries and how to like basically fit into society. And like, so you have this whole learning pattern up until whatever point in when, when success happens. And then it's like all that shifts pretty dramatically all, you know, in a relatively short period of time. And so like, how do you, how do you think, like managing your previous, like, previous friendships or your life, like, you know, how has that been tricky for you?

Or like, it's been tough. I, you know, I value deep, close, long term friendships and. Yeah, but I mean, I have amazing friends, but they certainly do treat me a little different. They, they bust my balls noticeably less.

Yeah. And you need, you need that sometimes I need.

I. Not sometimes. All the time. First of all, it's how dudes show love is making fun of each other. At least my friends.

Yeah.

Like, you know, when you watch, man, I'm gonna get in trouble. But when you watch, like, women interact, they're often like, really positive towards each other. Like, oh, you look great. Yeah, yeah, we watch dudes interact. Like close friends. They're just like, I mean, busting each other's balls. Stop making fun of each other. And so, yes, that has been a little bit harder. I try, I try to break those walls, like, but that's why with the famous friends, it's a little bit easier because they can still, like, Rogan roast me nonstop. And it just feels good. I just sit there and get made fun of and it's. Yeah, it's great.

And I still do it all the time. I just, it's just a different experience now. But I, I'm like a Goodwill junkie. Like, most, like, most of even my clothes were from Goodwill. But, like, I have this. I have this like, addiction with buying paintings from Goodwill. Like the eight dollar paintings where it looks like somebody was following along with like a Bob Ross.

Yeah.

Video. And it didn't work out quite right. Like, I look like I buy every one of those. I'll go in there and buy like 10. And so just even, you know, anytime you got into public now, it's just like, you know, it's going to be a little different than it was. You know, I don't know if that makes sense, but yeah, for sure.

I mean, I, you know, I'm trying to deal with it, but all of it. When you talk to world leaders, when you step into politics a little bit and you apparently stepped into politics even though you never meant to, you're not a political person, that, that world is like, what the fuck? It's very intense, especially at an intense moment in history and in an extremely divided country.

So, yeah, like saying that I'm not in politics. People like, well, of course you're in politics. And I don't know whether I am or not, but just I do think a lot of people in politics, like, as far as the people who sit on the Internet all day and argue about stuff on X or on whatever, you know, Facebook and all, like, I do think their heart is in it for the right reasons. They observe that there's a lot of things wrong in the world that they'd like to see different. It's just, how do you get those people out of a. How do you get those people out of this 4x4 square and like really like they're, they're entrapped in a, in the same kind of box that the people at Boeing might be with that structure. You know, it's too there. It's the tornado metaphor. I mean, so. But it applies in politics too. Like that there needs to just be a tornado through politics. And we need to figure, we need to just like lay all this other stuff aside and just figure out what's really pissing everybody off, what's really affecting our quality of life. A lot of times we're arguing over the symptoms of problems instead of identifying the problems, if that makes any sense. I mean, if Jordan Peterson were here, he would tell us about fire and how important that is and burning and like it. But it is all the water and.

Fire and ice metaphor and there would definitely be a connection to the Bible and then we'll receive a three hour lecture.

But it's all true.

Like, it's all true.

It is all, it's all 100 accurate. Yeah. That's the crazy thing. But it all ties into that same thing. Like you. Yeah. In politics now, it's almost like there's a rule book that you have to follow. And if you, you can't agree with this unless you also agree with that. You know, it's like, and maybe it's like the places. The way that we receive information about what's going on in the political landscape is always so biased. And it's like the, well, it's, it's contingent upon this algorithm, this like algorithmic system that we live under where we're fed. It's like, we're almost fed certain subcategory and it's, and it's easy to fall into that because you don't like hearing things you disagree with. And so it's a lot easier to just turn the TV on or go on Facebook and look at whatever page posts things that you know you're going to consistently agree with every day. And that's not going to challenge the way you think in any little way, you know, or, or like expand your thinking at all. It's, it's easy to just, it's kind of like a, it's a cult like type of thing. It's like, you know, here's. This is what we all agree with and if you don't, then go and get, you know, like. But it doesn't, it, we're far too complicated for it to really work that way.

Well, this actually relates to One of my favorite things in your conversation with Jordan, where you're just. Where you're just shooting the shit about, like, playing live music. And he goes to Kierkegaard.

Yes.

She's like, Soren Kierkegaard, the philosopher. I love Jordan so much.

I do, too.

He just goes to Carl Jung, Nietzsche, and there this idea from Kierkegaard that the crowd is untruth. So when you. There's elements to the crowd, that loses the humanity and the honesty of an individual that makes up the crowd. Because the default incentive of the crowd is to conform to some kind of narrative. It's like a distributed system that arrives at a narrative and the narrative holds control over that crowd as opposed to the individual humans who are thinking for themselves and being honest with their own thoughts and realities and so on. And so that he. He was saying that as a reason, from a communication perspective, to speak to individuals in the crowd, not to the crowd. So from the performer perspective, the moment you speak to the crowd, you're speaking to the lie that is the crowd. According to Soren Kierkegaard, it's pretty hardcore. Kierkegaard is pretty hardcore. Jordan's pretty hardcore.

But that is true. I mean, but. But specifically in my case, I mean, really, it applies more than it probably does in a lot of cases with crowds and music. You know, talking about Richmond, I wasn't necessarily even excited that Richmond did as well as it did. It was like, in a way, it was almost, like, alarming that it did so well, you know, and so those crowds that show up, like, maybe they do like my music, but I also think they're there for something. There is something bigger about it. I mean, I. I wish I would have done a better job of having people there at shows to capture some of those crowds I had in 24, man.

You mean the size, the intensity?

The intensity, like, it was revolutionary, almost.

Song of Revolution, you know, I think a redemption song from Bob Marley. Like, that song. It just connected with people. There's something there.

Well, and so many people identified different elements. Like I said, it goes back to when we were kind of talking when we first got here. But it was. It was crazy how it was almost like at the beginning with. Along with the scrutiny and some of the other things, it was a lot of different people, like, almost fighting over me or fighting over it, like, because it resonated with different. It resonated with people who voted differently than each other, which is. Which is probably a pretty terrifying thing if you're. If you're in the business of keeping people divided and angry at each other. So it, you know, it was a. It was one of the first, one of the only times that I can think where there was that. That much of a sense of unity among people who otherwise wouldn't. I mean, like. I mean, I think about 9, 11, when I was a kid. I was in fourth grade, but God, man, people were just like. People just put everything aside there for a little while and it was kind of. It was kind of like there's bigger problems that just aren't in our face. And if. Man, if they're in your face for just for a second or two, you realize, like, it's. It's hard. It's hard in your mind to create a graph that's got like all these. But, you know, we argue about a lot of these problems, but if you were to really look at them, like, if you really just stand back and look at all the problems we spend time focusing about on the Internet versus all the things that are affecting us like that really, and probably at our core, even piss us off. It's. It's got to be very disproportionate. And like, the reason it got the reaction it did is because we all, like, no matter what it is that we're upset about or what we think needs to be different in the world, or our opinions of things or how we're raised or what our parents taught us, it's like, I think we all feel a little bit out of control in this new society. We all feel like we're probably. We probably all feel like we're falling into this kind of like, corporate power structure where none of us. Where we are. Where we all are just robots. We're all just. We're not allowed to be ourselves and be human almost, you know, and there.

Was enough people feeling that. I mean, people on the left feeling like the people in power over the working class. People on the right feeling the exact same with different words assigned to it. The deep state, you know, fucking over middle America. Yeah, whatever the narratives are. And they're just. When enough of that is happening, again with the corporate polite speak. There's something about politeness that's really dangerous. I feel like there was a lot of politeness in the Soviet Union.

Yeah, great example.

Underneath that, it's like Chernobyl, which is this nuclear power plant that melted down. I feel like the bureaucracy needs politeness and civility and paperwork to function, and then atrocities can happen underneath that. So everybody. People in power with a smile on Their face can just do horrific things and then give propaganda that look, you know, it's rainbows and sunshine and. And unicorns. Yeah. So people that are rude. I mean, I'm starting to awaken to this a little bit. Like you need a little like Tom way says. I like my Tom. A little drop of poison. You need some, like, some poison. Some, some swearing, some meanness, some bullshit, some like, intensity to shake up a system. Because when it sort of converges towards this polite bureaucracy, the atrocities can happen and hidden away.

And what's probably the most terrifying to me is that that politeness is just theatrical, whereas it emulates the respect that we would normally give each other in society if we were healthy and functional.

What was the process of writing that song? I mean, it really spoke to the pain and anger of millions of people. So there's magic there. How many edits, how many like lines did you write? Were there any lines that you were like, tormented by, haunted by? Come back. Should I do it this way or this way or that?

Do you have a. I don't know. Do you. Can you pull TikTok up on this? So if you go to my page.

So if you go down chickens.

Yeah. Go down pre Richmond, you can see the original version of Richmond where I put it up.

This is so cool to see the evolution.

There it is. Okay, so that's, that's, if you play that, that's.

I have too many unfinished songs.

Yeah, play that. Click that and play it. 724.

Oh, wow.

And if you read through this, it's so funny. Everybody's like, you're about to blow up. That's all I had. So I had, I had just that.

You should probably finish this one. Might be real popular. That's a post from a few days.

Later that was in. That was in July.

That's so inspiring.

So that's what I had.

That's so inspiring. That's what, like a couple weeks before you posted the final.

Well, that's all I had. Yeah, that's all I had written at that point. Like that. In my mind, that's what, that's the inspiration for the song was that little bit. And I wrote that just because I was on job sites all day and you know, going into like all these just terrible places to work, like dealing with different contractors and stuff. You were talking about wanting to go and talk to blue collar people and all. It's like that's what I did for work basically for eight years was build long term relationships with people in blue collar I was in the industrial space, so I would talk. Sometimes I'd talk to 20 different people a day. You know when you sit in a job site trailer and talk to. And talk to a group of dudes, like, and you're not there with some news camera, you're just there as like a random dude. Like, you hear so much about what really goes on behind the scenes of. Of the structure of what builds. What builds this country and keeps it going. And I think that's probably what it was. It was just a. It was how I felt, but also how, I guess a lot of other. Like, you know, it was just. I don't know, it just seemed like the truth. So.

So you jot it down even to the details, like in a notebook. Like those words.

No, it's always just on my phone. I would just keep recording the. I would just keep, you know, like. So if you were to go back to Tick Tock, like, and look at any of those original videos. So like the songs that ended up charting, let's say, like the ones that were on there, that charted with Richmond, like this. I've Got to Get Sober.

So literally, it's a good song, man.

So literally what I did was this video I took at my property. This is my carport where my camper was. And I took this video, I went to some sketchy virus ridden mp3 to wav file or mp4 to wav file transfer thing. I would rip the audio off of this video, put this on TikTok and then put that on Distrokid. And that's the. That was the song. But basically like this would. This would have been the first time I played I've Got to Get Sober all the way through. Like, I would just keep writing it and working on it, writing it and record myself. And maybe I would record myself 30 times over the period of like two mods, you know what I mean?

Oh, but it's. When you say writing, you mean in your head, not actually typed out or written, right?

It was just video.

It was mostly just video over and over. Just videos.

Just trying to figure out how to make it. Yeah, but that's what all these. All these are like the audio file from all these videos is what's. Is what ended up on Spotify and all that. You know what I mean? This is.

It's cool to see these videos before you blew up. So this is a good song you're playing, August. So what. What is this at the end?

Yeah, yeah. These were all.

Don't sell your soul, brother. This is the best music I've heard in a long time. That's a comment before you blew up?

Yeah. Yeah. I think I had about 10, 000 followers or something.

What a song. That's a good one.

And you gotta think like, this was. Start crying like, that was my. That was when I quit drink. You know what I mean? Like, so that.

But the trouble and the sand of the world that we're in Knock me.

Back off my feet so that's coming from. From. From your heart right there.

Just imagine living right.

The thousands of people you helped with that.

Know how it's gonna go. Yeah, but it ain't gonna happen tonight so pour them down strong till I.

Drown.

And if I wake up tomorrow when that sun comes back around I'll be wishing I was so.

It's so crazy how those cicadas and stuff come in. Like. I just felt like it was a God. I don't know how to. The bird, like, that's just off my phone. All that stuff's just there, you know?

And, Lord, I know that upstairs there's an old man who cares and one day he'll set me free I'll go on the whim Start hiding the hill.

That'S a genius of song. That's a genius, brother.

It's just crazy to think about.

And what's this one right before. What is this? Oh, yeah.

So that's like the private.

And this is a nice recording. Got it?

Yeah. So this video got uploaded, and then Draven from Radio WV would have gotten a hold of me in between this and that. He watched this and was like, dude, you got. He said, we got to record that one and that. Like, I said, I didn't have it all. I just had whatever was in that video is. All I had written it was. I think it was just the chorus in the first verse. Draven saw that video and said, we.

Got to do this one.

Reach out to me to record. And he's like, yeah. He's like, no, we got to do that one. And I was like, dude, that's all I got.

Tell me about that guy Draven.

He probably is like, yeah, he's probably like my best friend now. We. We hit it off with this, and we're like. We're like brothers now, I guess.

But talk about, like, what he's doing for country, for music in general, for country music, for discovering talent, for, like. Yeah, he's clearly sees something in people.

Yeah, he's just this. He's a little bit younger than I am. And he's. He wrote music and played and he's got some of his. If you look up Draven rife. He's gonna kill me for even saying this, but he's got some pretty dude. He can. If he was like a pop singer, he would be like. He can write the most catchy stuff ever.

Let's go.

Yeah. So click on like I don't know.

Bye bye.

All right.

That'S him. Yeah. Where's this from? Five years ago.

I was feeling on my way. I was 10 years old walking underneath the blanket of West Virginia snow. Then I walked right by. No trespass. I need a grass. Look green across property line. Bye bye. Bye bye.

You know, he could probably do. If he does, he could probably be real famous. Well, he's got a certain look.

That dude will sit there and he'll just like. We'll just be sitting there at like two in the morning and he'll just all of a sudden do this little thing and he's got like the most amazing first part of this like song or we just started to co write together like in the last few months. So I'm really excited for that. But if you go to his. This is really funny too. I'm sorry. Draven. I love you, man. So go to videos and go to oldest first. This is what's so awesome about Draven. He was originally working for this lady who was trying to develop different types of hair care products. But he thought the market was too saturated so he was going to get into beard oil. So he created Radio WV as like a fake plug page for his burly boy beard brand he was working with. So like click. Like if you look at. Yeah, like that very first video. Yeah, it's like it's got all his beard products and if you look there's. There's multiple ones like that. So he started it just to do this beard thing with. And then like, I don't know, he just kind of felt called to like keep going with it and it. And it just sort of naturally progressed.

Yeah, that too is inspiring. Like you start out one way and then you discover something real special. I mean, he's got a. He's got an eye for how to bring out. I don't know what it is like the. Both the audio side and the video side, how to bring out the best.

He says he just wants it to sound like the way he likes hearing it, which kind of makes sense, you know, like it's kind of in the same way Talking about when we were talking about setting the cameras up and a professional would tell you you needed three lights and you're like, well, I think it would work with the. That he's just kind of like, well, it'll just work like this and, and.

Do it in a way where he likes it. Yeah, just do it for yourself.

He does it because he loves it and that. And you can see it shows, you know.

Yeah, you can see it in there. And there's some good talent. Like you were showing me, this new lady Gabriel.

Yeah, she's got it. But not a lot of people would record her doing that song. But he's like, I don't know, it just was different. I just thought people ought to hear it. But he's. Man, it was a blessing that he came along. When he did, it was like, it really changed both of our lives.

We got to talk about that. So you posted the. The song Rich Men north of Richmond on August 8, 2023.

I remember I was at work that day when it went up. Yeah.

So it blew the fuck up. Straight to number one on the charts. Tens of millions of views and listens. And a few days later on August 17, he made a post that I thought was pretty gangster. It was beautiful and gangster. So one of the things he said is, it's been difficult. As I browse through the 50,000 plus messages and emails I've received in the last week, the stories that have been shared paint a brutally honest picture. Suicide, addiction, unemployment, anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and the list goes on. And then you went on to write, people in the music industry give me blank stares when I brush off $8 million offers. I don't want six tour buses, 15 tractor trailers and a jet. I don't want to play stadium shows. I don't want to be in the spotlight. I wrote the music I wrote because I was suffering with mental health and depression. These songs have connected with millions of people on such a deep level because they've been sung by someone feeling the words in the very moment they were being sung. No editing, no agent, no bullshit. Just some idiot and his guitar. The style of music that we should have never gotten away from in the first place. So huge props for that. For walking away from lucrative multi million dollar record deals and I'm sure the money that was just coming your way, huge props, you know, moments happen where, you know, the world tests you and integrity is what you do in those moments. So huge props for that. What was your philosophy? What was your thinking behind that?

It was all those Messages I got. I mean, you can see it in the comment sections of a lot of the videos after everything happened. But people just, like, felt this spark, like. Like, wow. Like, maybe we actually have a chance to. Like, maybe we actually do have some kind of power, you know, like, those people put that song there, nobody else. And, like, gave me the opportunity to make. Even without sign anything, I was still able to make millions of dollars and have financial freedom. And like, I just. I just felt like. I felt like if I was going to do anything like that, that I'd be. I'd be betraying. Like, I would be taking those people and almost betraying them somehow, you know, Like. Like they. I hate the big machine just like everybody else, and I. The last thing I'd want to do is be. Is ever supported or be a part of it. Like, I want to watch it crash and burn, you know, like, see, this is.

The really important thing is whether it was betrayal or not, we'll never know. But you felt that it was. And to have the integrity to walk away from the bag of money when you felt that way, that's epic.

It was also, you got to think a couple months before this, like, of course I had. You know, I had a wife and kids that I loved and, like, I had a lot of really important things to live for, but I didn't have a whole lot to lose. Like. Like none of this was even really real. Like, it. I didn't care about that. Like, I didn't care to lose this just as quick as I got it. Like, this didn't. This was. This didn't mean anything to me. It just meant something to me that, like, that I could do something for, like, you know, you. It's like, even if I'm not smart enough to figure out how to fix some of my own problems in my life, the fact that I felt like I could help fix somebody else's, like, that meant a hell of a lot more to me than any. That's what I didn't want to lose. I didn't want to lose those people's trust or, like, feel. You know what I mean?

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I've just tried to make every decision around, like, as best as I can, like, what I think the right thing is to do, and who knows what the hell the right thing is to do. But I just try to follow, you know, we all have that little voice in us like, that we all have some what. And. And I think sometimes we mask. It's hard for us to listen to that little voice. Whether. Whether it's like, you know, whether it's our gluttony or our lust or our. Or our. You know, we. We numb ourselves with medications or with alcohol, or we. We scroll on YouTube for four hours a night, and instead of. Because we don't want to listen to our conscience, but there is this, like, very intelligent, discerning thing inside of us that's able to tell us what's right and wrong. And it's a. It's a spiritual thing, I guess. And I just try to. I just try to listen to that when I can. I don't know. I just still feel like I haven't done enough.

I think you did a lot. I think you did a lot. I think you're an inspiration. You've helped a huge number of people, and you're also an inspiration to the other side of it, which is the artists and just the humans, to have integrity. I don't think people realize how much of a test of integrity fame, money, power also is. You know, Rogan and I talk about this quite a bit. We get to see. I mean, Joe especially, but I haven't. I've had a bit of the same. You get to see people become famous, and you get to see how they deal with that. And it's not easy. A lot of people will sell themselves a bit, sell the soul a bit, Give away a bit of their integrity of the spirit that made them who they are. You get caught up in the wave of it, you know, and so to. To keep on holding on to that. That's a powerful thing. That's a really.

Yeah, that's all I got, though, you know?

Yeah.

When you lose that, what the hell are you like? And you see it like. You see these celebrity people that just, like, fall off the. They fall off this. You know, they go off the deep end. It's like you gotta have. You have to have something in your life to. And to keep you centered and to keep you. You know, your whole perception of reality and like, your just existence in reality is all contingent upon this sort of, like, this center that you exist in. And you have to. If you don't have that, then you're just flying through space. Through space. I mean, we're all just riding on this rock that's going who knows how fast.

You said something. I think the jocko that I really liked. Everything that has purpose behind it comes with risk. So there in that moment, I mean, you're taking a hell of a risk.

I was terrified. I talked about This a little bit with him too. But I was terrified to even put the song out. Like, I knew I was going to be the subject of scrutiny and judgment and I knew people were going to like, you know, I kind of knew all that was going to happen. I was like going back to that, talking about crowds, like to stand in front of thousands of people and everybody be in some sense of unity. Like a lot of times when I end the shows, I'll always. I'll always end with this statement that just says, you know, no matter what, like no matter how you feel when you go online, you know, everyone feels so small and insignificant and. And powerless. But I just say no matter how they make you feel online or when you turn on the TV or when you look at polling numbers or whatever, like when you just look at all this trash that we digest every day, like you're. There's always. There will always be more of us than them and all that. And. But like to see that, like just to see the light in people's eyes when you say that. But the truth is like. And it's like who is us and who is them? And it's like us just represents humanity and like. And all the things we talked about so far, like just, you know, the fire and the chaos and. But also the like the love and just life. Life is just such a crazy, complicated, beautiful, disastrous thing. And then them is like. It is. It's the power structure. It's the. It's that same terrible side of us that created things like the Soviet Union and is ultimately what's created this like monster that we all live under today, which now is not just. Doesn't just exist within the confines of the Soviet Union, but seems to almost be a global epidemic.

And then that song became the rebel call against that, against the power structures that creates that.

Yeah, it's like how much fire am I willing to play with? Because I know at some point I am going to get burned from it. I just pray a lot that God, I don't have a lot of self worth in myself anyway. So I don't really care what they say or do to me or I don't care. Like I don't even care if I die. Whatever. Just don't let. Just. Just protect the people I love is all that's all I ask of God. I have this dream of just creating this parallel system that sits beside all these stupid systems that we live under that are all sort of engulfed in this. This thing that we talked about at the beginning. This. This type of structure, you know, where none of us, we're all just robots. And it's like if we hate, you know, if we hate the way music is and all these artists are complaining about the way the venues are monopolized and the ticket sales are monopolized and let's just go find other places to play music because there's so many people hungry for music in places that don't ever get it. And if you look at it, there's so many passionate people that are fighting all these different causes. Like, like just in food. It's the word they use for, for more or less starvation. It's a more polite. It's called food insecurity. But if you look up just in Virginia, just where I live in Virginia, in the rural areas, how much food insecurity there is and how many empty vacant farms there are, it's like, this is an obvious problem that we should be on Twitter talking about non stop. Like, this is like, everyone has to eat. You know, it don't matter what you vote for or what, like what you look like or any of that crap. You can, you know, like, so, like, let's just like, why, why are we living in a country where we have. Why are we living in a country where half of us are obese and eating food and don't know any better and then the other half of us don't have. Like, how Just, it's just, it's lack of leadership that's caused dysfunction. And so if we're tired of that, then, then let's just fix it. Like, we don't need anybody's permission. Like, that's the whole beauty, like, that's the whole beauty of what America is, is like we don't, we don't need some greasy haired corporate schmuck to give us permission to go fix all these things that are wrong. Let's just go do it. If they don't like it, them, you.

Know, in all domains of life, from food to the music industry, honestly, to education, also to government itself, all of it. And that, you know, your music is also just the soundtrack to that spirit that makes America great of just constantly trying to revitalize itself when the bullshit piles up all too high. There's that revolutionary spirit that says, like, we need to fix this shit.

And that inspiration that created this country was from years of people living under tyranny. Like, we forget the story of the people who really created this country. Like, it's funny, I. One of the statements I made at the very beginning that got Taken way out of context. But I wasn't in a position to like, even begin to have a conversation about is. I made this comment early on at one of the shows about. About how. About how our diversity is a strength. But that term has been hijacked now to mean something a lot different than what it really means. But it's like, think about how many different people came together just at the founding of this country. Like people who spoke different languages, different cultures, religions, ways of thinking. So many different people came together to even create this place now. And like, we've just forgotten about all that. They didn't all come here because they wanted to ride on some miserable boat ride and risk their whole lives to go to live in some crazy jungle essentially, that had no structure, like no infrastructure, no medicine. No, like, they didn't come here for like some glorified camping trip. It's because they were tired of like, generations of being persecuted and living under tyranny and not being allowed to practice there. You know, it's not like they wanted freedom of religion and they didn't want separation of church and state because they were a bunch of goody two shoes and they love going to church every Sunday. It's because they weren't allowed to believe in what they believed in because some king or some hierarchy told them they couldn't and they were just tired of it. That's what we're losing now is like we've forgotten that we're those people. Like, the same structures that have plagued this country are. They're multinational corporations. And they're. And it's just the ideology behind them and their. And their structure is what the problem is.

Yeah, I mean, it's multinational corporations. It's nation states that are deeply corrupt and are authoritarian and ultimately abuse power and yes, create elements of tyranny. And from that the human spirit rises, like I said, with songs like the ones you write or at the founding in this country. That's why all these diverse outcasts come together and write something as crazy as all men are created equal. What a gangster line. I guess not an easy thing to take a lot of that stuff for granted now. But that's not an easy thing to come up with. That's a really gutsy thing to. To see. To see the value in all people equally. And of course, they also were suffering from delusion. You know, they didn't see black people as equal. They didn't see women as equal. But even that first leap of like, all men are created equal, that's like A gigantic fuck you to the past.

Taking that leap forward really took a lot in an age and a time when, when it probably sounded. And it's not like they just made a statement and put it on Twitter. Like they, they like think about how much. Just think about the insanity. Like I can't even conceptualize the insanity of what took place from the time that, like even from the Revolutionary War until now to try to preserve that idea, you know, so like so much has happened and so much sacrifice has been made and just so many hours of labor and thought and intensity.

Even the 20th century has got two world wars. And you know, especially in the Second World War, the United States played a very crucial role and there was a lot of ideological, like battle of ideas going on at that time of the role of war and peace, of the role of the United States as the center place for the ideal of human freedom and human rights. Yeah, we continue to innovate. So I'd love to get back to talking to blue collar people you mentioned. Those are some of my favorite people. So it was actually really cool to find out that for many years of your life, basically the way you made a living is talking to blue collar people and getting their story. So I'm traveling across the world for a bit, but of course the world that I love the most and I'm most curious about is the different subcultures and towns of the United States. So I took a road trip across the US in my early twenties for several months. And that was like a transformative experience for me. And that's something. One of the luxuries I have is to have the freedom to do whatever the hell I want now. So I want to take a road trip across the United States for several months. And one of the things I wanted to do is to just talk to people in small towns in middle America. I don't know what words to put on it, but to talk to the very people that you talked about that, that, you know, construction workers, plumbers, waitresses, oil rig workers, just people that do something real. People that are real, that don't make much money, that struggle, but have a, as you talked about, have like a richness to them that's not often revealed, that's not often talked about. So maybe can you speak to that, to your, to your time with blue collar folk?

When I got all those messages at the. We were talking about early on, earlier in this, like so many of them. And even now it's even since I even like in the last couple days, I've gotten some where they start with hey, I'm a nobody. But like that's how a lot of those start, you know, like the nobodies of the world, if you want to call them. Like that's. It's, it's frustrating that the people who literally have, have, have built and preserve and maintain the structure of society that we all comfortably live in. Those people have the least amount of representation. They're ignored just because of the way the social hierarchy exists. But the, some of the most dim witted, irrelevant, terrible people are put here and are idolized and spotlighted and they're all over television and they're all over the Internet. And we act like they're like they're kings and queens and like that they're royalty. And then all these people who do jobs that most of us will be too terrified either wouldn't have the, even the ability to do. We'd be like, how many people are going to go underwater and weld? But if we didn't have underwater welders, like one of my best friends whose name is also Jocko, funny enough, the dude works 70, 80 hours every week. He's on the Chesapeake Bay tunnel job now, but the dude's gotten on heights that I couldn't get on. He's went underground places I wouldn't go and.